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Shara Qunduz Louvel
she's not the kind of girl who likes to tell the world Shara Louvel is an Uzbek-American woman in her late twenties traveling with her two children (step-children, though she tends to ignore that prefix). She is educated, well-dressed, and amiable, if a little sarcastic sometimes, but often seems slightly on guard, and is selective about the personal information she reveals. Her husband seems to be constantly away on business, and she says she is taking their kids around the world to make the most of their summer. She often uses the alias Sara D'Avalos, after the wife of composer Carlo Gesualdo. about the way she feels about herself Full name: Shara Qunduz Louvel (Louvel is her married name). Age/DOB: 27; September 28th. Zodiac: Libra with Scorpio rising (charismatic, logical, idealistic, diplomatic, sensitive, quiet), year of the Boar (flexible, artistic, compassionate, soft-spoken, self-assured, astute, cautious, stubborn, opportunistic). Profession: Engineer. Height/Weight: 5'7"/123 lbs. Hair/Skin/Eyes: Brown/tan/green. Ethnicity/Nationality: Uzbek/American, Canadian citizenship. (The PB lists her own ethnicity as Asian, so.) Education: Gijduvan Girls' Primary (ages 7-12); Nightingale-Bamford Girls' School (ages 12-15), Trinity School in New York (ages 15-17); 3-2 cooperation program at Fordham College and Columbia University earned her both a Bachelor's degree in engineering from Fordham and a Bachelor of Science from Columbia; two-year MA in Urban Planning from McGill University in Montreal. Languages: English, Uzbek, Russian, Arabic, French. Family: Husband (estranged) Maxim Louvel, step-daughter Élodie Louvel, step-son, Olivier Louvel. Aesthetics: Shara looks cared for, as a rule - she is someone who's had the time to invest in skin care and conditioner and lipstick and personal trainers, which emphasizes what she wants to be emphasized. She wears her make-up like armor, being rarely without it, and generally has her long, wavy hair styled neatly. She's not a modelesque classical beauty (that was her older sister), but she is a good-looking woman, with a heart-shaped face, high, defined cheekbones, full lips, and a small nose. Her smile is one of her better features, but tends to make her look slightly wicked, or at least mischievous. She is hazel-eyed but tends more toward the brown side than the green, and as a child she was nicknamed "the little starling" in Uzbek for her coloring - neutral all over, but well-crafted. Shara carries her attractiveness fairly nonchalantly, like she's aware of it (and she will use it as a tool for manipulation, if necessary), but generally it's just a characteristic like her hair color -- she's cute in a way that's kitteny and girlish, despite encroaching on thirty, is in great shape physically and is somewhat buxom; she also tends to tan a lot, being naturally olive skinned and something of a sun bunny. Clothing: Sensible but upscale, dressing to flatter and accent in subtle ways: jeans and trousers most of the time, but she's equally comfortable in skirts (generally pencil skirts- she feels a little inappropriate in minis) and cocktail dresses. She wears soft, warmer colors, like deep greens, very pale pink, cream, grey, rose-beige, contrasted with use of black or brown. Favorite designers include Donna Karan, Stella McCartney, Chloe, Oscar de la Renta, a little McQueen, Paul & Joe. Perfume: Three only. * Cuir de Russie by Chanel, 1924. "A very improper perfume for properly brought up young ladies." A non-saccharine flowery leather, a feminine scent with an unconventionally almost-masculine leather underpinning; begins sweet and floral, fades in with a dark, spicier incense base. Considered very warm and elegant, quite a lot edgier and more adventurous than No. 5 but still wearable in the daytime. Notes include bergamot, incense, spice bush, jasmine, ylang-ylang. Trademark scent. * Chaldee by Jean Patou, 1927. Warm, golden, meant to evoke white flowers and sunshine. Notes include amber, vanilla, orange blossom, and daffodil. Summer scent. * En Avion by Caron, 1932. Fiery, woodsy, inspired by the first female pilots. Meant to be "ambitious". Notes include leather, lilac, neroli, musk, woods. Evening scent. she takes a little time in making up her mind Shara was born in 1983 to Yusuf and Tatyana Qunduz in Gijduvan, Uzbekistan; she spent significant parts of her childhood visiting Tashkent and occasionally Moscow, accompanied by her older sister, Nila, four years older than herself. Her father, half-Russian and half-Uzbek, also happened to be a covert intelligence officer for the Soviet Union who eventually became a double agent on behalf of the Americans (perceiving it as ultimately beneficial for Uzbek freedom) until the establishment of Uzbekistan as an independent country in 1991. He and his family settled on the outskirts of Gijduvan to farm with the not insignificant financial blessings rewarded to him for his service, but his betrayals caught up with them, culminating in the deaths of Nila and Tatyana in a car bombing; Shara was injured, but survived, and in a small blessing didn't remember much of the incident. The months that followed were chaotic and dangerous, but probably influenced more of Shara's personality than she'd like to admit. He used some old contacts -- relentlessly -- in order to acquire a US visa, sold his land, and cashed in all the debts he was owed, moving himself and Shara to New York City, where he keenly tracked the economy to make the best investments he could. Shara attended private school, and she and her father were very close. He was much more conservative than she was, but she was hardly the bar-hopping rebel, either, focused on her schooling at Trinity and keeping mostly to herself. While she entertained studying art professionally (or possibly architecture, which is another favorite hobby of hers), practicality won out, and she chose to minor in it while majoring in a combined program at Fordham College and Columbia University which enabled her to earn both an engineering degree and a BoS. Her personal life was marked mostly by serial monogamy, with three major relationships occurring before her twenty-first, each one eventually involving a proposal at some point, but she always said no. Sometimes that ended things, and in her relationship prior to meeting her husband, it was merely a repetitive feature of their social outings, but she knew she hadn't found the right person, and in her typical fashion was maddeningly polite in rebuffing the offers. She wasn't sure what she wanted at such a young age, but she knew better than to settle. And then, at just shy of twenty-one, she met Maxim Louvel, a wealthy Quebecois businessman visiting his company's operations in New York. He was widowed, seventeen years her senior, the parent of two children, and also owned the very company she was interviewing for an internship at; he didn't speak to her personally, but saw her, and spoke to her after her interview. Shara didn't get the job, but as he explained, it would have been awkward to ask her to dinner if she worked for him--and thus, things began, although she did first make him get her father's blessing- Yusuf succumbed to lung cancer during Maxim and Shara's courtship, but assured her he was just happy she'd found someone to be with, though she was pretty devastated after his death. A year later, after some long-distance finagling and visiting, they were married, and following her completion of university she moved to Montreal to live with Maxim and his children and begin graduate school. The notion of parenting was initially daunting to her, but she took to it with ease--and found it becoming the focal point of her life. Eventually both children began to call her "mom", and things had fallen together nicely. Of course, this is when things went to hell. Shara took a business trip to New York, during which Élodie was caught with an alcoholic beverage of some kind, and when she returned, she discovered her daughter had been sent to one of those horrific "wilderness camps" in the States. She put that to rights quickly, but when she got back, things with Maxim were, to put it mildly, strained. She'd never seen this side of her husband before, and began investigating more about his life when he wasn't with her and all of the secrets he held in his office, discreetly employing the little bit of magic she'd learned from her mother to do so. She uncovered Maxim's dealings with a powerful pharmaceutical company called Telesis International, whom she discovered had links to a terrorist organization called Numen--in fact, they were one in the same, and Maxim was helping them cover it up. She considered her options, and ultimately chose to take the kids and leave. Run, actually: they're in hiding, presently in Central America, where it is mostly hot, but at least the kids get to see interesting things. All of the things she learned from her spy father are coming in handy in ways Shara never expected. she doesn't want to fight against the tide * Intelligent: One of the reasons Shara's father was so keen on having her be educated in the States is she's always been the bright one (her sister was "the pretty one," for the record, which is kind of an icky set of designations to give your kids, but happens in lots of families). She's naturally clever, but she also works really goddamn hard, which helped a lot. She gave up having much of a social life in high school to be top of her class, and doesn't take anything she's earned for granted. * Practical: Shara was born in a country that is not really full of economic opportunity, and she learned pretty early on to make the most of what she had in every way she could. She's an empathetic person, but she also wants to get the job done, and stepping on toes a little bit is okay sometimes. She's an engineer, not a counselor. * Protective/maternal: A big part of who she is! Family has always been the touchstone of her life, back when she had her whole family, when it was just her and her dad, and when she became a mother to children with an allegedly deceased biological mom. She's a firm, fair parent, and her own mother-bear personality surprises her sometimes. The dedication she has to raising her children is proven in the fact that they call her mom, even the teenage girl. * Quietly upscale: Shara was not born into money, but she did grow up with it from the age of twelve or so, and she took to it pretty well--she never delved into the flashiness of the nouveau riche, and it surprises people to learn she wasn't born on the Upper East Side, though she still owns her father's home there. She likes her things well-made, but not necessarily attention-grabbing: this is just for her and her own, it's not a performance, so fuck what anyone else thinks, frankly. * Sarcastic: Shara has a low bullshit tolerance. She has been through: living in a hideous war-torn dictatorship in a country where the President has boiled people alive, being raised by a paranoid former spy, attending private school as a parvenu in Manhattan, a dual enrollment program at a competitive Ivy League university, becoming a mother to two children at the age of twenty-one, and now uncovering her husband's treason. She was born with kind of a sharp tongue, but after all of that: seriously, she has no tolerance for anyone trying to make her feel bad about herself; if they manage to get a reaction beyond "apathy", they will receive a pretty vicious dressing-down, and she has no qualms about going right for the jugular. (As a consequence, despite not coming from a Name background, she was not hassled much in school. A girl who's lived through a car bombing is kind of inherently willing to go further than someone who had the benefit of growing up in a country not famous for its terrorism; much as she loves her homeland, she knows it's a scary place, and she is in some ways a product of that harshness. It's what has helped her keep her family alive now.) * Ostensibly reserved; secretly a troll * Liittle judgmental * Headstrong/willfull: * Well-mannered; understated * Secretive! She would have made a great spy. lately, i'm not the only one; i say never trust anyone game history i won't be the one who's going to let you down * Élodie Louvel is Shara's 15-year-old step-daughter. maybe you'll get what you want this time around * Olivier Louvel is Shara's 9-year-old step-son. she knows the human heart, and how to read the stars now everything's about to fall apart Over the Rhine - "Give Me Strength" :: Something's drawn me here again, and I cannot leave the past alone. Give me strength to find the road that's lost in me. No Doubt - "Artificial Sweetener" :: I'm full of artificial sweetener; my heart's been deceitful. I'm faking I love yous, you're forcing me to. Matchbox 20 - "Disease" :: No one's ever turned you over, no one's tried to ever let you down. Feels like you're making a mess, you're heels on wheels in a black dress. the trick is to keep breathing Shara Louvel is a fictional character; her played-by, Beren Saat, belongs to herself. Category:Characters Category:Living